Begging On My Hands And Knees For Y'all To Stop Calling This Reality 'irl'

Can we normalize not asking people out while they’re with their parents/elders 😭 ?? Because this random guy asked me out while I was with my fob grandmother (who only knows extremely basic English) and it was awkward asffff. Cause she was confused as hell and I was embarrassed and it was terrible. Like shoot your shot bae just not in front of my immigrant grandmother 😭🙏

Hey, let's talk about anons like this, because I know some people haven't been in a position to see the patterns these play out in on broader scale and may indeed not spot the trap.

And it is a trap.

An ask like this has several purposes.

First, it uses social justice language in passive aggressive and manipulative ways to try to coerce a behavior. In this case, the desired behavior is usually for the recipent to participate in community shunning and/or harrassment. The language above is intended to put the recipient on the defensive where, in the haste to disassociate themself from the Bad Thing, they quickly disassociate themself from the bad person, often with no particular fact checking or evidence.

The message is also intended to create a sense of being surveilled and judged by an unknown amount of people with unknown amount of social power and an unknown amount of relevance to your life.

Notice that these asks are usually framed as if they are coming from a follower or potential follower, someone who is addressing you personally and who cares about your opinion and who your blog has an effect on. However this is usually.... very much not the case. If you've ever had the misfortune to watch a gossip campaign from like this from the outside, you will very quickly notice that messages like this get sent in mass batches to dozens and dozens of strangers. (You can often turn these up with a tumblr search, if you look.)

The sender does not know you and probably does not follow you. They have a person they don't like (possibly for their stated reason and possibly not), and they are going through the reblogs of a post from that blog and mass messaging *everyone* with a form letter. They will not see your response and they will probably never even see your blog again.

Which brings us to the second goal of whisper campaigns like this:

Notice that I blacked out the names above? That's because when the recipient answers anonymous asks like this, they provide a platform for the opinion on their blog. An anonymous message like this that gets posted doesn't just spread gossip and apply pressure to the recipient, it is spread to the recipient's entire community.

The *goal* is to get access to your community. The *goal* is to use you as a soapbox.

Is the information accurate? Did anyone check? Does the anon have an ulterior social motive? BIG SHRUG

If you go into the comments on one of these whisper campaigns you will see that *most people never bother to check.*

They assume good faith from a follower, they're off balance defending themselves, and they jump straight to conciliation.

It's a really, really effective form of social manipulation, and really really commonly misused.

A new year, here we go again~ (hii.. now I'd return no my cave)

mood lately

Chat how much aura did I lose ??

Never shooting my shot again 😭🔫

Bonus !! (My homeboy’s response)

Maybe we’ll get to see the first American pope in history be the first pope to excommunicate the US vice president

Successful manifestation …?

Everyday at school I eat breakfast because in my district we get free breakfast and lunch. The breakfast is pretty okay most of the time but occasionally they have really good things such as funnel cake, a waffle bar(with like whip cream, strawberries, chocolate chips the works yk), and donuts. I get off the bus and my friend asks if I wanna walk to the cafeteria with him. After being reminded of breakfast I say, “you know what? There will be donuts at breakfast today I’m manifesting it” We walk to the cafeteria and what do I see ? Hella kids eating donuts. So I excitedly run up to the kitchen where the food is served and they’re fresh out of donuts. Ngl I teared up a little bit because I really wanted some donuts but ANYWAYSS

Was this a success … ? Because on one hand I did say that because I intended to munch on some donuts but on the other handddd I did only say “there will be donuts at breakfast” not that I will be eating any.

Idkkk I’ma just say it was a success so that way the day wasn’t a total loss ig. Butttt I’m curious on what y’all thinkkkk ??

The fact that I been in love with this man since I was 8...

I'm 19 now...

shifting motivation for you<33